By S. DARSALIA

Following Covid isolation and recovery, coupled with advancements in AI creative collaborations and Meta-Art, New York City artists are feeling an unprecedented urgency to share their creative outputs with the public. They’re breaking away from traditional gallery confines, taking the initiative into their own hands. Frustration with private and public art exhibition policies is driving artists to seize every opportunity to turn the city into a showcase for their works. Individual artists and groups are contributing to a new mythology within the alternative culture of the city through spontaneous art performances, street music, theater, dance, and installations. This culture celebrates the diversity of New Yorkers, enriching the ever-changing landscape of the city’s chronicle.

Architecture of metaFlight #14. Photo credit Olga Lamm

Braque & Picasso’s Daughters, Asia #2. Photo credit Olga Lamm

Renaissance Ball, Big Girl #1. Photo credit Olga Lamm

With a projector and gear, assisted by friends and family members, Olga Lamm, a New York-based metaArtist, continues to project images from her series Architecture of metaFlight, Braque & Picasso’s Daughters, and Renaissance Ball onto urban buildings.

In Olga Lamm’s Architecture of metaFlight, the avian forms are weaving through the arches of Gothic windows, their movements graceful and free. They carry the spell of childhood dreams of flying to the other side, the mystery of being, where there is no boundary between the earthly and divine. Within the nocturnal backdrop, their wings intersect with the swirling motion of a circular portal, conjuring a captivating scene. This enchanting display offers a distinct experience, infusing the city’s vibrations with a poetic turbulence that evokes a sense of magic and wonder.

Renaissance Ball and Braque & Picasso’s Daughters present a gallery of projected artworks based on Lamm’s candid portraits of drag queens captured over two decades ago during Wigstock at Pier 54 and Tomkins Square Park. Braque & Picasso’s Daughters series was inspired by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, pioneers of Cubism, who occasionally signed each other’s paintings. This collaboration prompted Olga Lamm to explore how art can transcend its creator’s identity. The photos for Lamm’s series were taken during the (Wigstock) festival. By extracting images from one format, she created her “ready-mades,” reflecting a characteristic of meta-art: renunciation of permanence. The series investigates the relationship between drag culture and the city. Olga Lamm transforms NYC buildings into a walkable exhibition of digital meta-artwork with her projection of meta-images, leaving a significant aesthetic impact on accidental onlookers.

Lamm’s visual installations maintain an air of anonymity until a curious onlooker makes inquiries and a passerby stops to take a closer look, or a group of neighbors gathers to discuss the installation, inadvertently becoming part of the unfolding experience.

An observer, upon noticing the images projected onto buildings, could interpret them based on their understanding and readiness.

For more info visit Olga Lamm’s website www.olgalamm.com and Instagram @olgalamm_projections.